Basu: Iowa was ahead of its time in granting all couples rights

Heterosexuals often take federal marriage benefits for granted

Jun. 28, 2013

Tammy Steinwandt, left, and her wife, Melanie Muth, were guest speakers Wednesday at a rally at the Iowa Capitol. The group celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling earlier in the day that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. Married gay couples will now have federal benefits such as Social Security survivor entitlements and family leave. / Bryon Houlgrave/The Register

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Melanie Muth and Tammy Steinwandt were married in 2009, the year Iowa became the third state to recognize same-sex marriages. That happened when a state law banning such marriages was invalidated by the Iowa Supreme Court.

But while Iowa’s laws have adapted, federal marriage benefits have remained off limits to same-sex couples like them — thanks to the exclusionary federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, that was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton.

Then came Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down DOMA. That evening, with Iowa’s Capitol as a backdrop, Muth and Steinwandt looked out from a podium at rallying supporters and Muth held up a list of 1,138 federal marriage benefits and triumphantly declared, “Today they belong to us!”

These benefits are the provisions heterosexual couples have long taken for granted. They include Social Security, survivor entitlements, and family leave; the ability to file joint federal tax returns, to get spousal health coverage, and to be listed as the surviving party on death certificates; the right to make health care decisions for a spouse or sponsor someone for an immigrant visa.

Although marriage licenses are still issued by states, the Supreme Court, in effect, said the U.S. government could no longer be a closed club that discriminates. In the 13 states that recognize gay marriages — and those that are yet to follow — the federal government will, too.

Declaring the federal marriage law discriminatory, the court said, “DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others.”

The ruling said “no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity.”

And with that, the entire American landscape had changed.

It’s not just the practical and financial effect on gay families. It’s also that in this ruling and another one striking California’s voter-approved ban on gay marriage, the court exposed the lie on which exclusionary laws have rested: that same-sex marriage hurts opposite-sex marriages.

That lie was first invoked with the notion that equal rights for gay people were “special rights.” The very name of the Defense of Marriage Act suggested that more rights for gay people mean fewer rights for straight people. In fact, the opposite is true: The more human rights a society recognizes, the more humane a society it is.

In invalidating California’s Proposition 8, the Supreme Court said that the plaintiff appealing a decision to overturn the marriage ban had no basis to claim injury. “It is not enough that the party invoking the power of the court have a keen interest in the issue,” said the decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry that was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts. “That party must also have ‘standing,’ which requires, among other things, that it have suffered a concrete and particularized injury.”

Opponents of same-sex marriage have been bogusly trying to claim injuries since political strategists discovered that that was a way to win votes. In Iowa, the arrival in 1994 of Bill Horn and his National Campaign to Protect the Sanctity of Marriage may not have gained traction had Horn not found an ally in Gov. Terry Branstad. Branstad helped Horn raise money and called him one of the “staunchest defenders” of traditional family values.

The anti-marriage campaign has been based on the singular premise that the institution of marriage would be destroyed if gay and lesbian couples were allowed into marriage. When it was noted that people don’t suddenly turn gay — they either are or aren’t — programs purporting to “cure” them were touted and discredited.

Opponents then claimed marriage was for raising children, and if gays did it, there wouldn’t be enough kids. When it was pointed out that gay couples also have children, opponents said that couldn’t be good for kids. Then a gay Iowa foster-parent couple was recognized as parents of the year, and the articulate, obviously well-adjusted Zach Wahls gave a passionate defense inside the Iowa Capitol of his two-mother upbringing. The “harm” argument had leaks.

Yet people in the 35 states that currently ban same-sex marriage are still hearing it. Even in Iowa, where the issue is settled, Republican Party Chairman A.J. Spiker, in a news release responding to the ruling, said Iowans should put marriage to a vote and remove “activist judges” to uphold freedom and defend values.

Be careful what you wish for. Bans tend to open the door to same-sex marriage, as Iowa’s did.

When DOMA was introduced, the prospect of gay people marrying was nowhere on the horizon. It might have been years before gay people asserted that right.

But now that even the nation’s conservative high court has reached a similar conclusion, we can safely say Iowa was ahead of its time.